Open Letters to Ex-Girlfriends and Hook-ups #2: J.E.

I don't expect you to read this. I doubt all but two of my exes will ever read this. Even more so than the two girls I have chronicled in this column before you, I am almost positive you have forgotten all about me. I picture you as having moved on to bigger and better things.

That doesn't change the fact that you are the first ex-girlfriend that I feel the need to apologize to in any way. The way I broke up with you was incredibly messed up and the person I am now can not believe that I acted in that manner. I had my reasons at the time that made perfect sense to me, but now I truly realize that I handled it the entirely wrong way. I was in no place to be in a relationship at that point of my life. My mind was just in the wrong place and I was in no way mature to handle a relationship that was as sexual as you wanted it to be. After all this time, I think you deserve an explanation.

I put in for a transfer of locations at work following my last romantic debacle. Despite the high rate of turnover for movie theatre employees, everyone involved in the viscous rumour that crushed my spirits and nearly cost me my job still worked at that location. I couldn't cope. I needed to get out of there. That transfer led to me being the youngest manager at the theatre you ultimately ended up working at.

This theatre was, somewhat astoundingly, and even bigger hive of hormones that the last theatre was. All movie theatre jobs are really great for horny teenagers. I am convinced that if you can't get laid working at a movie theatre, you just can't get laid.

You were still in high school, a private, all girls school in Connecticut, and I was about to start my first year of University after taking a year off to clear my head and get back on my feet after what my parents did to me. I know I never told you the specifics of why that was. I will probably get to that later, but not in your letter. You know how some parents of famous child actors would steal their fortune? That was kind of what happened only I wasn't famous or even remotely wealthy. I didn't fade into obscurity so much as I languished there. At least I didn't get any nasty addictions out of it.

Everyone at that theatre was dating someone. The management was expressly told not to date staff members, but everyone turned a blind eye to those pointless "non-fraternization contracts." Everyone went out together and everyone was sleeping with someone at some point. Everyone, that is, except me.

People kept telling me that you liked me a lot, but you were too shy to say anything. I thought you were cute, but a little too young for me. Besides, I had my eye on other girls my own age. Only when those girls got snatched up by other guys or rejected me did I see you as a viable option. You were truthfully my fourth choice of crush at the theatre. I think I can now safely say this without you ripping my head off.

Despite our obvious flirtations, you were the one that had to make the first move. You said you wanted to talk to me after work. I was hesitant on hanging out after work. The reason escapes me now. It might have been because I really didn't want to do anything at all. I told you to follow me to the stock room and you could talk to me and keep me company while I did the weekly inventory. Thankfully, I was the only manager on and it was a slow night since we ended up making out for almost two hours.

From there we began a pretty dysfunctional (in hindsight) and somewhat one sided relationship. You were clearly more enamoured with me than I was with you. I was happy for the attention. All those mornings where you would purposely come in really early so we were the only ones in the entire building and we would make out until we both absolutely had to get professional and get to work. Those mornings meant a lot to me on an emotional level. It was the first time I ever felt wanted, but I was so self-involved, scarred, and distracted by the outside world that no amount of hand jobs in the stairwell or blow jobs in the projection booth washroom were going to change that. Now that I think back, we only ever went on three dates that didn't involve us getting into some sort of sex act in the theatre. One was to the coffee shop in the same plaza as the theatre. One was to the greasy spoon diner behind the theatre on my birthday. The other was at the Chinese restaurant behind the greasy spoon diner.

I really did like you and you were incredibly sweet, but all I was craving at that moment was physical attention, and that was wrong of me. I remember how you approached me on the last day you worked. It felt like a comedy of errors with a somewhat bittersweet ending. I was changing the marquee outside at the end of August. You had just finished your last shift and you came outside to talk to me.

"Hey, guess what? You're not my boss anymore. You know what that means?"

I manoeuvred the suction cup pole in my hand to move more letters into place. "I have no idea. What does that mean?"

"It means we can finally have sex."

I accidentally pulled the string on the suction cup pole that was holding a giant letter A and watched it fall from the sign directly onto my face, creating a gash about an inch over my eye that probably should have required stitches, but I sucked it up and continued to work anyway. You stuck around for the majority of that night since I was the only manager on duty. I once again neglected my duties so we could make out on the fire escape for an hour or so. God, I loved that job.

You whispered in my ear "I really want to have sex right now."

"So lets do it."

"I don't have a condom."

"I know someone who does!" I said that maybe a bit too eagerly. "If I can get one, do you want to go have sex in the office?"

"Um... Yeah, I guess, but you're a virgin. Don't you want your first time to be special or perfect?"

"It will be! And I really, really want you very badly." I don't know how serious I was about that in hindsight. I am also pretty sure that is the one quote out of this whole conversation that I am getting wrong. Feel free to correct me.

"I mean, I want to as well, but I was going to come visit you at school and surprise you in your dorm. I wanted to make it really special for you. You mean a lot to me."

This triggered an alarm bell that I will get to in a moment, but it also made me more determined to have sex with you that very night.

"It will be special, and who knows when we will ever be able to do that. You will be in a different state and I will be in Boston (lie). We will both have school. I will be filming things (would be a lie) and you will be kicking ass in field hockey. I just want to close this summer on a high note."

You agreed to it and I went to grab a condom from Brian, who I knew always had them on him despite never using a single one of them. He was the most optimistic 15 year old pot dealer that I knew.

Then something strange happened. I actually had to do real work. The prints for the following day had not yet shown up and I had to work the phones to figure out what we were going to do. Two people called in sick and it actually got somewhat busy. Then one of the projectors went down and I had to kick a drunk guy out of the theatre. I was not expecting any of that.

It came upon 10pm and you had to go home soon or else your father was going to start asking questions. You approached me in the box office as I was changing the times for the next day earlier than I should have been. I wanted to finish all my work for the night so we could get our casual sex session on before I had to start closing and you had to go home. You told me you were having second thoughts about tonight. I asked you why.

"I'm not exactly sure if you love me enough."

I thought for a second and then really halfassedly said "But I do love you."

Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie. Big huge fucking lie. And I think you knew it. You said you had to go home. I didn't stop you and I was kind of relieved. You kissed me goodnight and said you would be in tomorrow night to pick up your paycheck and give me your forwarding information as to where to send your final paycheck. I really wanted to get laid, but the look on your face made me realize that this was not how it was going to happen.

You came in the next night just to get your paycheck. You were there for about 5 minutes and 3 of them you spent kissing me goodbye. It was the last time I would see you. It wasn't because you didn't try.

This is the part of the story you don't know. This is why after you called me that one time at home, I never answered the phone when you called ever again. It was why I never called you back or ever bothered to contact. It is why I dumped you by trying to forget you ever existed.

No one at the time knew that I was not going to be living on campus for my first year of University. I had planned on it, but shortly before that happened my mother, who had the year prior abandoned me along with my father, called me at work and told me she was diagnosed with cancer. When she did it she was drunk and babbling about how I never tried to contact her. Given the subject matter at the time I didn't have the heart to tell her I had a damn good reason. When your parents lose their house, hearing your mother tell you "it looks like you are going to have to find a place of your own" after she just drained your bank account to help her move in with her sister doesn't go over well with a seventeen year old. Still, she was my mother and she needed my help.

I was going to commute the hour on the train from Worcester to Boston every day while still working to help her out financially. Her sister was ready to kick her out of the house because she wasn't paying any rent, but neither did her crack and heroin addicted brother Billy or her deadbeat sister Rose. My mother's whole side of the family was so fucked up that giving you the home number to that house was the worst thing I could have done.

The night you called my mother got drunk, shit herself, broke her forearm, and refused to go to the hospital. You called just after she fell and just before she was so drunk she couldn't control her bowels. At the exact moment you called to tell me you made the varsity field hockey team, my mother was rolling around on the floor like Homer Simpson crying and wondering why I didn't love her anymore. Billy was string out in the living room screaming "MAAAAAAAAAA! MAAAAAAAAAA!!! I NEEEEEEEEEEDD MONEY MAAAAAAAA!" And my mother's sister Lillian is screaming at me over all of this to get off the phone and to to have you never call again. I was apparently never allowed to use the phone because she needed it for everything. I cut our conversation short and called for EMTs to take a look at my mother's wrist which was turning black.

This was where I was going to be living. A place where I would never bring the hardiest or least judgmental of friends.

The EMTs arrived and they didn't know who I was calling to have taken away. They thought it was Billy at first because he was so cracked out, but they were wrong. Then they thought it was Lillian because she was a cranky woman with an oxygen tank. Then they came to my mother who so steadfastly refused to go to the hospital that the EMTs had to strap her to a chair and load her into the ambulance that way. I remember Lillian scolding me on the way out with them saying I was never to call for an ambulance to her house ever again. She was so protective of Billy (who never actually did any drugs in the house, mind you) that any authority figures in her eyes were the enemies of her son. Billy would die of pneumonia shortly before my mother and father would pass away.

I watched as the ambulance drivers strapped my mother down on a gurney. They handed me back the chair and said without insurance I couldn't go back to the hospital with her. I just watched as the ambulance drove away and I stood there in silence.

I could never bring you into this. I couldn't bring anyone into this. At that point in my life a relationship would never have worked. I still craved love and affection, but you were too young for this and it was way above your pay grade.

Despite a laundry list of physical and mental problems, my mother was released the next day because she didn't have insurance I didn't have power of attorney over her. Lillian did. She thought her sister loved her more than her own son. How wrong she would turn out to be.

You called several time after that. I always pretended to never be home or I would see the number and ignore it. After a week and a half you gave up and we were done. I was protecting you. Or so I thought, but I definitely went about it the wrong way, and for that I am sorry. I was young and scared. I had no idea what to do.

I have no idea where you are now. There seems to be no trace of you anywhere online. I do hope you found some happiness. You were very sweet and I do still think about you now and then. They are all happy thoughts except for all the ones that remind me of how terrible I was towards you in those final days.

I think I am pretty close to figuring this relationship thing out. I am definitely older and wiser now that I was then. I know what I want, what to do, and what not to do. The last crush I had when I started this column just didn't pan out because she really wasn't that into me. Now, I have a crush on someone that I know is into me and who I really like in return. I don't know why I am telling you this. Probably because I want to spend more time dwelling on you than writing the next letter in this series. That one, will be the hardest and most conflicted one of all...